sure the muscle contracted and pull. however, muscle isn't the only thing in this model. don't forget the bones and sinew and other stuffs which create various levers and pulleys. question for you, do you use the same set of muscles to pull and push? or different set of muscles? another question for you, how do you generate a push if you only have muscle pull?

There are many things mechanically at work in the body. However the only thing making active force is muscle. Bones, connective tissue etc. only make a passive force. That is to say, if they are put in the right alignment we can use their advantages. This is what happens when we put our body in good alignment, the skeleton takes some of the load, so the muscles don't have to work so hard to support the load.

You use different muscle sets to move joints in different directions. They are set up so one set moves the joint in one direction, and another set moves them in another direction. Different sets have different jobs.

Muscles only contract or 'pull'. They only pull in one direction. Depending on how they are attached to the frame they make the body do different things. You generate a 'push' by using a set of muscles that contract to make that kind motion. For example when the arm extends out, making a 'push' the triceps pull the the elbow straight. This 'pushes' the arm out. Inside of the body there are no muscles that extend, so muscles can not work in extending and contracting pairs, only contracting opposites.

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i think we posted this one before on the study about muscle usage using Kuroda sensei as the subject.

Look at the graph comparing between normal folks and Kuroda sensei. you would see that Kuroda sensei used his muscle differently than regular folks.

There are efficient ways to use your muscles and inefficient ways to use them. I've seen studies on wrestlers and MMA competitors that talk about how they use their muscles more efficiently then others during their specific activity. That's what athletics is all about, using the body as efficiently as possible to do the job required.

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in order to do these stuffs, we have to use imagery to mass manage the actions of our body. it's almost impossible to control the firing of so many different muscle groups throughout your body at the sametime or in multiple sequences. imagery allows our brain to do that without us interfere with the process. i don't use rushing water imagery, not when i am wearing the full aikido gear and can't get the damn gi pants off fast enough, especially after i down a whole pitcher of tea.

The idea that 'internal' training is largely a set of very useful images is something I can get behind. This idea would be something like, it's not that the body is being used in a way that traditional athletics doesn't use the body. But instead that these images help us organize the body faster, better, more fully etc.